Reality TV and the Art Critique

Ahhh… to finally see my TV return to grace with a new season of Dancing with the Stars.
I suppose that for me and my ongoing, possibly failed attempt to prove the value of my $100 TV, this is second only to baseball season.
Dave Hickey’s “The Heresy of Zone Defense” (in Air Guitar) convinced me that [...]

Start Rolling Out Your Soup Kitchens

So, in my last post I waxed not-very-poetically about art as a force for political change.
I went with art that describes the legacy of political decisions on our built environment − with the built environment as evidence of social conditions.
I also mentioned in an aside that I generally prefer to diminish the distinctions among forms [...]

Benjamin Edwards

I went out to see the Picturing Politics 2008 show at the Arlington Arts Center last Friday.
The show brings up, for me, the age old art world conflict over whether or not art can be an effective form of political commentary.  (That’s of course, to make hard distinctions among design and art, to dissociate performance [...]

Things That Make Me Cheery.

This appeals straight to the heart of my love for things simultaneously dark and giddy.
I guess that all goes back my long time admiration for the Thinking Feller’s Union Local 282. (They just don’t make them like that anymore.)
Plus, the video uses typography − another thing I esteem; in its case as the pinnacle [...]

“I’m an Ignorant Boob, Let me Tell You What I Think”

No… he really does begin by calling himself a boob.
Here is why it’s so hard to promote art education and a demonstration of why we so sorely need more of it all wrapped up in one ignorant diatribe.  (And also a reason why I can’t even remember what channel 60 Minutes is on):
[...]

If You See it Enough it will be True

For a lighter note today, I present you with: Best Photoshop Hoaxes – A History of Doctoring History.

One thing is that sometime, shortly after it becomes your job to teach people how to make these things, it’s just not fun to email your friends pictures of them with their heads on other people’s bodies any [...]

Campaigns and Interviews

In December, around the same time that I learned that my college was not going to fund a renewal of my position, the Presidential campaign onslaught began full-swing.
Since then, I’ve been amusing myself by drawing comparisons between our ever indelicate political process and that of finding a job.
I couldn’t help but chuckle, back in the [...]

In Which We All Got Together and Decided to Miss the Point

Did you know that when Kim Jong Il went out to play golf for the first time, the ball magically jumped up and flew into the hole all by itself before he even swung at it?  Or, something like that…  I did hear that the “official” story is that he routinely hits 4-5 aces on [...]

Open Source Textbooks

This is an update on a post I wrote a couple of weeks ago, Free Textbooks.
I came across an article dated from Monday on the Wired Blog Network: Open Source Textbooks, that I’d like to publicize/add to my two cents on the issue.
I’ll repost the most pertinent links from that article (you should still go [...]

Ahhhh for the Pastoral

I spent Sunday swimming and floating in a mountain stream of western Maryland.
…not much internet, blogging or art or ruminations on teaching or pontificating…
Part of a weekend-long camping trip to Green Ridge State Forest.

Just imagine the person standing there is a shirtless, pale white, unemployed guy with a bucket of Budweiser the shore.  Picture some [...]